Connect with us

Misc

Mining Blue Gold: The Impact of Sea Industries on Europe

Published

on

Click below image to expand to full screen version.
Mining Blue Gold: The Impact of Sea Industries on Europe

Mining Blue Gold: The Impact of Sea Industries on Europe

There is always money to be made on the new frontier. Sometimes it may feel like the Wild West, but that’s where the opportunity is. That’s why there are about a dozen private space companies vying for domination outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s also the reason that there is a rising tide on the deep blue sea, where billions are being made each year.

This infographic focuses on Europe in particular, where the United Kingdom is nautical miles ahead of anyone else in terms of developing sea-related industries. In fact, just the UK’s offshore oil and gas industry is larger than the total coastal output of any other EU country. At a staggering €36 billion per year, it is over 60% bigger than Greece’s entire coastal output of €22 billion.

Offshore oil and gas, as a whole, is the second biggest industry relating to Europe’s coasts. It generates 80% of Europe’s oil in total, but is expected to half by 2030. The biggest industry is transport for cargo and passengers at a total of €55 billion and 40% of costs go towards fuel.

Coastal tourism is the third biggest industry as a whole at €49 billion and employs about 1.6 million Europeans. It’s the biggest industry on the coasts of places like Italy and Spain.

Original graphic from: Technologist

Subscribe to Visual Capitalist
Click for Comments

Technology

Ranked: The Best Selling Video Games in History

This chart shows the top ten best selling video games, ranked by software units sold. Six of them have been released in the last 12 years.

Published

on

A chart ranking the top-ten most sold video games in history.

Ranked: The Best Selling Video Games in History

It’s a good time to be a video game fan. Not only is the gaming industry booming and projected to grow to $320 billion by 2026, but every year is bringing new evolutions in the medium.

2022 saw massive launches in both games (Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarök) and media based on games (the films Uncharted and Sonic the Hedgehog 2). 2023 has already seen the release of major flagship TV series based on a game, HBO’s The Last of Us, and the much-anticipated The Super Mario Bros. Movie is slated to release in April.

But which game is the best, or most successful? That debate may never end, but from company reports and sales data aggregated by Wikipedia, Samuel Parker’s chart of the most-sold video games as of March 3, 2023 can at least tell us which ones have been the most popular.

Top Ten Video Games Sold in History

The best selling video game didn’t need multimillion dollar budgets, sixty-hour narratives, or celebrity voice actors and ad spots. The independently-developed (indie) Minecraft, with its pixelated blocks, takes the top spot on this list.

RankGameSales (units)Year ReleasedDeveloper
1Minecraft238.0M2011Mojang Studios
2GTA 5175.0M2013Rockstar
3Tetris (EA)100.0M2006EA Mobile
4Wii Sport82.9M2006Nintendo
5PUBG: Battlegrounds75.0M2017PUBG Corp
6Mario Kart 860.5M2014Nintendo
7Super Mario Bros.58.0M1985Nintendo
8Read Dead Redemption 250.0M2018Rockstar
9Pokémon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow47.5M1996GameFreak
10Terraria44.5M2011Re-Logic

Minecraft sold more units than the combined forces of Grand Theft Auto 5 (#2) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (#8), both made by industry giant Rockstar. Its immense popularity has been credited to its simple gameplay (no goals), creative structure (build anything), and engaged community with player-run servers and additional feature creations (known as mods).

Another simple favorite, Tetris, comes in at third place with 100 million units sold of its 2006 re-release. Millennials continue to make up a large chunk of the video game playing demographic which might explain Tetris’ sales.

But newer games are making up the majority of sales records. PUBG: Battlegrounds, a battle-royale shooter game which helped popularize the genre (and eventually its competitor Fortnite) asserts its popularity at #5. That puts it well ahead of the better-known shooter Call of Duty, even despite PUBG being banned in a number of countries for the alleged impact on the mental health of gamers.

The oldest game to make the list is Super Mario Bros. (#7), apt considering it is credited with reviving the video game industry after it crashed in 1983. The original staple side-scroller has sold 58 million copies worldwide.

Developer Dominance

Though the top selling games span various series of games, a few developers managed to repeatedly find success.

DeveloperTop 20 Best-Selling Games
Nintendo11
Rockstar2
Others7

Japanese video game titan Nintendo developed three games (Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart, Wii Sport/Fitness) in the top 10 and another eight in the top 20. That’s not including its co-ownership of Pokémon, the world’s highest-grossing media franchise.

American publisher Rockstar Games also managed to score multiple hits, though its longer development cycle necessary to create cinematic games gives it fewer potential candidates. That might change with the much-anticipated GTA 6 reportedly in production.

Best Selling Genres

The most popular genres in the top 10 give players the freedom to impose their will upon the world and pursue objectives at their leisure:

GenreGames
Sandbox/Open World4
Simulation2
Others4

Two games (Minecraft, Terraria) are classic sandbox games, where worlds are procedurally generated and there are no gameplay goals. Another two (GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2) are in the adjacent open-world genre, with a combination of sandbox elements and a narrative structure.

However, with new games launching and selling millions of units every year, new entrants to the top 10 list of best selling video games of all-time seems likely. How will these developers, genres, and games fare over time?

Continue Reading

Subscribe

Popular